Plesiosaur Latest Coin in High Relief Silver Prehistoric Beasts Series
Prehistoric Beasts – Plesiosauria
Mongolia. 2,000 Togrog. 2020. Silver .999. 3 oz. Blue-rock finish. 65 mm. Proof. Mintage: 499. B. H. Mayer’s Kunstprägeanstalt, Munich.
Description of the Coin
One side presents the fossilized skeleton of a plesiosaur; below in italics Plesiosauria, Blainville, 1835; in block letters Mesozoic Era.
The other side features the coat of arms of the Bank of Mongolia, below in Cyrillic script 2,000 Togrog. In the exergue in Latin script MONGOLIA 3 oz .999 SILVER.
Background
Since 2018, CIT Coin Invest has been issuing its series “Prehistoric Beasts”. After Velociraptor mongoliensis and Protoceratops andrewsi, now a coin featuring a sea dweller will be released, the Plesiosaur de Blainville.
The word plesiosaur is a combination of the Greek terms for “closer to” and “lizard”. By creating this name, the French zoologist Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville (lived 1777-1850) wanted to point out in his original scientific description of 1835 that this animal was more closely related to dinosaurs than the ichthyosaurus, which also lived in the water. By the way, the species’ name “Plesiosauria” isn’t the only term created by de Blainville that is still used today: when we talk about “paleontology”, for example, we’re using another word coined by Blainville.
The Mesozoic species of Plesiosauria was first discovered at the coastal cliffs of British Dorset, known as “Jurassic Coast”, by Mary Annings, the first woman professionally engaged in paleontology. The plesiosaur de Blainville excavated by her is still considered one of the best examples of the Plesiosauria species.
By the way, plesiosaurs didn’t only live around the British Isles but in every ocean of the world, which is why remains were found on all five continents.
Whereas the plesiosaur de Blainville “only” reached a length of about 3.5 m, other species had a length of up to 20 meters. But there is one thing all plesiosaurs had in common: they were extremely fast. With their four fins, they “flew” through the water – just like penguins do today.
For the third release of its series “Prehistoric Beasts”, CIT Coin Invest adapted its “Red Rock Finish” to the habitat of the marine animal. The blue-green coloring of the rough background in “Blue Rock Finish” makes the skeleton minted in high relief with smartminting© technology stand out particularly clearly. This issue of the award-winning series is especially interesting for collectors and lovers of state-of-the-art minting technique: CIT Coin Invest decided to limit the mintage of Plesiosauria to only 499 pieces.
Further Information: www.cit.li/coins/plesiosaur
Source: https://coinweek.com/
